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Classicist Emily Wilson illuminated the intricacies of translation in her lecture “Re-translating Homer: Why and How” held Thursday. The event delved into the challenges and significance of reinterpreting ancient texts for modern audiences.
The lecture was divided into four main topics: defining translation, explaining Wilson’s background and priorities in translation, demonstrating a case study and answering the question of why Homer is still relevant today. Julia Marvin, the chair of the department of the program of liberal studies, introduced the talk.
“The past is a foreign country,” Marvin said. “They do things differently there, and the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
COLOGNE: Online translation platform DeepL says it launching an AI assistant that, unlike ChatGPT and other rival AI chatbots, is designed to support the writing process with real-time suggestions on word choice, phrasing, style and tone.
The German software company says its new assistant allows users to optimise their texts regardless of their language skills and find the right words for any situation and any reader.
DeepL Write Pro is the company’s first product to be based on its own large AI language model (LLM). LLMs are machine learning models that are trained to understand and generate human language. Well-known LLMs include GPT from OpenAI, Gemini from Google and Llama from the Facebook group Meta.
The new AI writing assistant is primarily aimed at business users and is designed to support teams in companies when writing business content.
DeepL says the assistant, which currently works in English and German, can help companies ensure precise communication from internal content to external customer communications and contracts.
Google has been quiet as Chrome still doesn’t have this functionality. As for Firefox, users will no longer have to use third-party extensions as the Close Duplicate Tabs option is now available in the context menu.
Simply right-click the page that you assume is a duplicate and choose Close Duplicate Tabs from the context menu. This feature is currently available for testing in Firefox 127 Nightly and enabled by default.
While this feature is useful, it only appears if you right-click a duplicated tab, so you’ll need to manually find the tab before closing all of its instances.
German startup DeepL, known for its AI-powered machine translation, is making a foray into the realm of writing where it adjusts the style of the sentences according to user preference with an emphasis on business application.
The startup launched the service, powered by its own large language model (LLM), in Korea on Friday. It is available in English and German with a plan to expand the number of languages supported.
The style of the sentence can be selected from four style options — business, academic, simple and casual — and four tone options — friendly, diplomatic, confident and enthusiastic.
“Words matter, and language can be the competitive edge that moves the needle for global businesses,” said Jarek Kutylowski, the company’s founder and CEO.
“DeepL Write Pro is our first product powered by our own LLMs, and is the culmination of years of research and innovation that has set us apart from other tech giants.”
‘Shōgun’is a refreshing reminder that in a time where the power of the ‘one-inch tall barrier’ still seems distastefully under contention, sometimes you need to revive the literal Tokugawa Shōgunate to bridge the cumbersome gap between worlds
In its grand finale, FX’s captivating rendition of James Clavell’s historical epic Shōgun gracefully bows out with a rendezvous with mortality.
“Please split your belly open by sunset,” and “Have a good death” echo some of what we hear with the casualness of a tea sip. Yet, to truly grasp the weight of seppuku’s socio-historical significance, honour the richness of its source material, and deftly navigate the intricacies of translation, the series stands alone in its unparalleled achievement. Shōgun employs a three-pronged approach, replete with cross-cultural exchanges, verbal fencing, and the delicate dance of understanding in an era poised on the precipice of profound change.
In early January 2024, when many in the language industry were likely pondering how to eventually incorporate AI into their offerings or processes, OpenAI announced its GPT Store. Back then, a few translation GPTs could be found, including one built by Phrase called “Phrase Expert.”
By the time OpenAI launched the store to the general public, there were already more than three million GPTs done by pre-release testers. After the kind of hype seen in late 2022 with ChatGPT and all the drama surrounding the company’s CEO and Board in 2023, the store launch was also a popular subject in the news and on social media.
Then, the announcement of the company’s text-to-video generator, Sora, arrived in February 2024, lest people get OpenAI out of their minds for too long.
In March 2024, we asked readers if they had ever used Custom GPTs since the store was launched, and over two-thirds of respondents (64.6%) said No. Over a combined quarter of readers said they tested GPTs a bit after launch (14.6%) or from time to time (12.5%), and a very small percentage said they have been using them daily (8.3%).
Anuvadini, the AI translation tool that is breaking boundaries by translating movie dialogues from Vietnamese to diverse Indian languages will also translate ABK Media’s curated, “The Northeast Connect”, digital content into various Indian languages.
ABK Media, under the mentorship of Dr. Triveni Goswami Mathur, an Educator and Media & Communication Expert, has structured content that delves deep into the heart of Northeast India’s richness, a press release said.
The North East Connect digital content aims to promote cultural understanding and inclusivity. By unravelling the region’s socio-cultural complexities and economic potential, this content will serve as a beacon for scholars, entrepreneurs, and policymakers alike.
Overall, it will equip learners with knowledge to contribute positively to Northeast India’s development.
Anuvadini, will also become the first tool to translate the dialogue of a movie into various Indian languages.
Dr Hilary Brown will be leading a project over 2024-25 which will explore what feminist translation means in practice in the twenty-first century.
Dr Brown has been awarded an AHRC Networking grant, together with her co-investigator Dr Olga Castro (University of Warwick/Barcelona), and will be establishing a “Feminist Translation Network” which will bring together researchers, practitioners and educators to discuss feminist approaches to contemporary literary translation in English. The Network will ask questions such as: What is feminist translation (e.g. how does it differ – or not – from translations by women/of women or from queer translation/gender-inclusive translation)? Is feminist translation a matter of identity or a matter of practice? What are the goals of feminist translation and whom is it for?
The Network will address these themes at a series of free public events held over 2024-25, beginning with a translation ‘slam’ and roundtable discussion at the Birmingham Literature Festival in October 2024.
The Network’s activities will be overseen by a steering group which includes former DoML staff member Dr Gaby Saldanha.
In a March 21, 2024 paper, Fan Zhou and Vincent Vandeghinste from KU Leuven demonstrated that language models can predict the most suitable translation techniques for translation and post-editing tasks.
The researchers highlighted a set of persistent issues that remain in MT such as word-for-word translation, false friends, ambiguity, information omission or addition, and cultural insensitivity, leading to low-quality translations that may lack clarity and accuracy. These issues arise from the system using incorrect translation techniques, something a translator wouldn’t do. “The human-generated translation process relies on diverse translation techniques, which proves essential to ensuring both linguistic adequacy and fluency,” they emphasized.
Additionally, they highlighted that “utilizing translation techniques is crucial for addressing translation problems, improving translation quality, and ensuring contextually appropriate translations.”
Zhou and Vandeghinste suggested that automatically identifying translation techniques before can effectively guide and improve the machine translation (MT) process. Additionally, these techniques can serve as prompts for large language models (LLMs) to generate high-quality translations.
We stand on the brink of a new era, fueled by the rapid advancement and integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Today, the manufacturing industry is poised to undergo a transformation unlike any it has seen before.
While the transition from manual labor to automated processes marked a significant leap, and the digital revolution of enterprise resource management systems brought about considerable efficiencies, the advent of AI promises to redefine the landscape of manufacturing with even greater impact.
Central to this transformation are Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI technologies. These tools are significantly lowering the barrier to entry for subject matter experts and field engineers who traditionally have not been involved in coding or “speaking AI.” The impact of this should not be underestimated. Up to 40% of working hours across industries could be influenced by the adoption of LLMs, a significant shift in workforce dynamics.
AI, and particularly LLMs, will have a profound impact on the manufacturing sector. The opportunities are vast — but there are potential challenges, too.
AI-native language translation application DeepL Translate is launching into Australia and Singapore following regional forays into Japan and South Korea. Founder and CEO Jarek Kutylowski said it is targeting APAC businesses that require more natural language translations.
Tech employees in APAC know working in the region can involve struggles with language. While most cross-border business is conducted in English, there can still be difficulties communicating, which can lead workers to turn to offerings like Google Translate or ChatGPT for help.
Jarek Kutylowski, founder and chief executive officer of DeepL.
The same goes for enterprises looking to win business in the languages of the region. Jarek Kutylowski, founder and chief executive officer of DeepL, said the firm’s natural language processing AI model offers natural language translations in 32 languages, thanks to years of development and fine-tuning since launching in Europe in 2017.
With additional APAC languages on its roadmap for 2024, DeepL is expanding its footprint into Australia and Singapore, with key business use cases including translation for cross-border business growth. Its Pro subscription (starting at US$8.74 per user per month, rising to US$57.49 for an Ultimate package) and API Pro (beginning at $5.49 per month) allow businesses to translate documents at scale or integrate translations within their workflows.
International holidays are set to return so we asked experts to test some of the top translation apps
SPRING HAS SPRUNG, and the summer is fast closing in, and – more importantly – international travel is returning in the coming months. This means the opportunity to immerse yourself in different locations, languages and cultures, and we’re here to assist you with that endeavour.
While learning some local lingo before you go, or picking some up along the way broadens the mind, a language translator app can be a great tool for helping you along the way – whether it’s assisting in a jam or lending a hand with learning the language.
Language translation apps are ten a penny these days, with many being free alongside some premium options. In some cases, you may not even have to download a new app, with Google and Apple getting in on the game with their own versions. Microsoft has its free offering, and lesser-knowns like SayHi and iTranslate are also making their case. We’ve tested them all to find the best one to take with you as you satisfy your 2021 wanderlust.
Climate Cardinals is a youth-led nonprofit that’s accomplished quite a bit with almost no funding: translating 2 million words in four years to make scientific literature more accessible to non-English speakers.
Earth Day 2024 marks a turning point for the group, leaders say, with $400,000 in backing from the philanthropic arm of Google.
The nonprofit plans to use the funding to expand its translation capacity from 500,000 words per year to a least 1 million and as many as 3 million words per year, says Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa, Climate Cardinals’ vice president and deputy executive director.
“This is our anchor funding, though we have several grants from L’Oréal and National Geographic, among others,” says Hayakawa, also a senior at Williams College in Massachusetts.
“We began with a $500 budget and have largely functioned with a near-zero budget with volunteers spending their time on Climate Cardinals between work, sleep and study.”
This year’s zodiac symbol has been retranslated from ‘dragon’ to ‘Loong’
After mainland Chinese official media outlets started calling 2024 “the Year of Loong” instead of the Year of the Dragon, the word “loong” and its homophones have become a popular meme among Hongkongers on social media, representing the government’s shift toward nationalistic policies and language.
The Year of “Loong”
This year, major Chinese state-affiliated media outlets have abandoned the term “dragon” and adopted the word “loong”, an uncommonly used transliteration of the Chinese word 龍 (dragon in English), to refer to the 2024 Chinese Zodiac. The alteration was later explained in numerous media commentaries, including the Chinese state-sponsored China Daily.
These commentaries argued that in Chinese culture, the image of the mythological animal is very positive and divine, while its Western counterpart is a negative “monster”. They also contended that the mistranslation of the Chinese word into “dragon” is a cultural distortion and misinterpretation.
On April 20, we celebrate the United Nations Chinese Language Day, a day chosen to honor Cangjie, the legendary inventor of the Chinese script. In light of this, I propose that the term hanzi be officially adopted as the translation for the symbols of the Chinese script.
For far too long, we’ve relied on the term “Chinese character” as the English equivalent of hanzi. However, given the evolving nature of language, it is imperative to reevaluate this lexical equivalence and adopt a more nuanced perspective. Particularly during the celebration of Chinese Language Day, let’s spread the use of the Pinyin-transliterated term, hanzi.
The Chinese script stands as one of the oldest writing systems in the world. It is an invaluable cultural treasure for the Chinese people, a symbol of national identity, and a bridge that connects people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. But its influence doesn’t stop there. The Chinese script has had a profound impact on the languages of Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and Vietnam.
Translation has consistently been a central focus at London Book Fairs. Translators’ and scouts’ perspectives shape publishing decisions for translations. Nonetheless, their impact on the UK publishing market is limited to 3-6% of the market, which mostly belongs to anglophone writers. Over the last two years, Japanese manga made it clear: the foreign literature segment is poised for growth.
In 2023, the UK witnessed a surge in popularity for manga and cozy novels, with Japanese writers leading the market for translated titles. Seventeen of the top 30 translated authors in Britain hailed from Japan, contributing to nine out of the 20 bestsellers being originally written in Japanese. Kentaro Miura, the manga creator who tragically passed away in 2021 at the age of 54, led the pack of translators. An overwhelming 95% of manga sales came from titles originally published in Japan. Among the top 10 authors in translation who generated over £1 million in sales last year, seven were Japanese, with five of them being manga creators. The only non-Japanese names in the top 10 were Thomas Erikson (3rd) and Andrzej Sapkowski (10th).
The top 20 lists featured familiar names such as Elena Ferrante, Jo Nesbo, Paulo Coelho, and Haruki Murakami. Additionally, new faces emerged in the charts, including Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov.
While AI tools have been used by some translators to support their work, three-quarters of those surveyed believe the emerging technology will negatively impact their future income
More than a third of translators have lost work due to generative AI, a survey by the Society of Authors (SoA) has found. More than four in 10 translators said that their income has decreased because of generative AI, while more than three-quarters believe the emerging technology will negatively affect their future income.
The SoA, the UK’s largest trade union for writers, illustrators and translators, ran the survey in January. It found that 37% of translators had used generative AI to support their work, and 8% used it because they were asked by their publisher or commissioning organisation.
Thomas Bunstead, whose translations from Spanish include The Book of All Loves by Agustín Fernández Mallo, said it is important to draw a distinction between literary translators and “commercial” translators. “Though a third of translators have responded to the SoA survey saying they think they’ve lost work to AI already, literary translation remains in the hands of humans,” he said. “The work that has presumably been handed over to AI will be the kind of uncomplicated bread-and-butter stuff which doesn’t require so much nuance,” such as instruction manuals.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the body in charge of developing and publishing international standards, has published a new standard on evaluation of translation output.
ISO 5060 is the result of four years of work conducted by the ISO/TC 37/SC 5 technical committee for translation, interpreting and related technology, and the 18th document of this kind published by the unit (with a further seven being currently under development). Numerous experts on translation and quality evaluation formed part of the working group, with participants from more than 30 countries contributing to the creation of this new standard.
ISO certification brings an array of benefits for companies deciding to pursue it: increased sales and revenue, heightened efficiency, and improved quality of operations are usually expected as a result of certifying against a selected standard. Language service providers (LSPs) and others recognize compliance with ISO norms as a competitive advantage, allowing them to position themselves among top players in the industry.
Imagine your mother has cancer. You just heard about a promising new experimental treatment and want to enroll her in the study. However, your mother immigrated to the U.S. as an adult and speaks limited English. When you reach out to the research team, they tell you she is ineligible because they are recruiting only English speakers.
Unfortunately, this is an all too likely outcome of a scenario like this, because non-English speakers are frequently excluded from clinical trials and research studies in the U.S.
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